EXTREMISM IS THE EXISTENTIAL THREAT
We are perhaps witnessing in Israel and Gaza a most striking instance of extremists causing intolerable suffering and preventing the world living normally. Is it perhaps the case that most man-made global problems are the result of extremists being allowed to be in control? Putin’s war in Ukraine, the dysfunctional discord of United States politics, the Iranian and North Korean threats, Chinese Communism, the poverty of so many countries ruled by corrupt autocrats, and Islamic Jihadists preaching murder and suffering are active examples of extremisms polluting the world, like life threatening cancers.
It tends to be extremists who dominate social media issues, and social media allows extremists to spread their poison to the four corners of the globe with relative ease attracting people otherwise disaffected or a bit lost. At a lower level, has not even the turmoil of getting agreement on Brexit been a function of extreme Brexiters and extreme Remainers, and extreme EU protagonists, owning the stage? Extremists thrive on division, and it is the core feature of extremists that they do not want balanced coexistence with those who disagree and rather wish to destroy them. Is it not time for moderates the world over to exercise their voice, to be firm not soft, to restore sensible order at least in parts of the world where freedoms permit such exercise? Whether those moderates are moderate Jews, Muslims, Christians, Communists, Democrats, Hindus, Humanists, or Atheists or Agnostics and so on.
THE ISRAEL/PALESTINIAN TRAGEDY – EXTREMISTS RULE
Is it fair to say that no decent person can contemplate the genocide of either Israel and the Jews or of the Palestinian people? Is it also fair to suggest that the Palestinians are entitled to the opportunity of an independent and prosperous existence, which they can create with outside support? And that Jews in Israel have a similar right? Of course, people who oppose these ideas exist, but if those extremists hold sway is it ever possible to resolve the continually unfolding tragedy of the Israeli/Palestinian conflicts? At the moment, Hamas and similar organisations such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hezbollah, as well as the autocratic leaders of nations such as Iran and Syria, all extremists, stand for destruction of Israel. Within Israel extremist Jews, including the leader President Netanyahu and his Israeli political allies, oppose an independent Palestine.
And so, it seems that neither Hamas nor an equivalent organisation can be part of that solution, nor can an Israeli Government or organisations led by Israeli extremists such as President Netanyahu and his allies: the former want Jewish genocide and the latter deny Palestinians an independent home alongside Israel. Peace between tribes and extremism do not go hand in hand.
FINDING COMMON GROUND
It is perhaps worth formulating answers to the following questions.
Is Hamas committed to the destruction of Israel and killing Jews?
Did Hamas, the Government of Gaza, and others such as PIJ start a war by invading Israel, murdering, raping and butchering some 1200 people, and taking some 230 hostages, in each case including babies, other children, women and the elderly, as well as men?
Did Hamas believe that Israel would retaliate against Hamas and that would involve battles in Gaza and so civilian casualties?
Did most of the people of Gaza support Hamas before 7 October and do they now? Do most of the Palestinians in the West Bank support Hamas?
Would those supporters maintain that support, if they were offered a decently optimistic and realistic alternative of peaceful coexistence with Israel in an independent State?
Has Hamas in the past 15 years of authority in Gaza cared for the Palestinian citizens?
Has Hamas spent billions of dollars building a network of tunnels, an underground network equivalent to a metro, and on purchasing arms for the benefit of Palestinians generally or in order to attack Israel and for self-protection reasons?
Would the world have to support Gaza Palestinians with 500 trucks of aid every day if Hamas had spent its resources otherwise to help Gaza prosper?
Is it true that Hamas has stockpiles of fuel, medicine, food and water which it is keeping for its fighters rather than distributing this aid to Palestinian civilians?
Is Hamas financed and supported by Iran? Are Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad organisations also so supported?
Is Iran committed to destroy Israel?
Has Israel really helped Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza?
Do Israeli settlers in the West Bank attack Palestinians unrestrained by the Israeli defence Forces?
Which Arab states are committed to assisting the Palestinians rather than using them to further their own agendas?
Is Israel willing to commit to reworking out the establishment of a Palestinian state?
Does Israel wish to annihilate the Palestinians?
Is Israel entitled to seek the destruction of Hamas as a military force and so invade Gaza and create a war zone there?
Has Israel gone too far in the consequential loss of Palestinian lives and creation of displaced refugees by destroying Gaza?
The answers at least to these questions, and no doubt others, should perhaps frame all commentary and discussion about the progress of this war. The integrity of Israel must be guaranteed by the Arab world. Israel for its part cannot morally continue with the consequential destruction of civilian society and lives in Gaza in the name of its goal to eliminate Hamas at least as a military force. It is hard to see how Israel can track down and enfeeble Hamas and free hostages without laying siege to Gaza where Hamas hide. Even if one believes Israel is justified in its approach, the destruction of Gaza is totally alienating Arab populations to the extent that it could become impossible for Middle Eastern leaders to offer any support or friendship to Israel, and its support in the West will become at best diluted, if there are thousands more civilian Palestinian casualties.
GLOBAL PROTESTS
Media pictures depict the horrors of war. They facilitate opinion forming through shock. Most civilised people are horrified by extensive human suffering which is caused by man-made conflicts, so savage and devastating. Most people simply seek a life where they can move forward constructively. The extremists stop that, and violent extremists terrorise and terrify moderates. Presentation by media can also distort the truth with its headline and dramatizations and inflame passions mistakenly.
Public protests across the world outside Israel demand a Gaza ceasefire. Is it fair to say that large numbers of protesters are not perhaps antisemitic or especially pro Hamas or Jihadists, but are driven by humanitarian instincts? But perhaps public demonstrations such as in the UK are also populated and fuelled in fervour by extremists of some persuasion, such as supporters of Hamas or other Jihadist organisation, antisemitic extremists, or extreme political activists of some persuasion.
In the UK, following the October 7 murders and butchery and notably after Israel invaded Gaza, their stated purpose being to eliminate Hamas and get hostages back, weekends have seen some 100,000 demonstrators gather to demand a ceasefire. In their ranks are those propounding a new Palestinian state in place of Israel, not alongside it. Extremists tend to see all demonstrations as a chance at least to disrupt. Who knows the extent to which protest and antisocial behaviour or worse is stirred by those nations and organisations, such as Putin’s Russia, the extreme Islamic leaders of Iran, the dictator of North Korea and the Communist Party of China, all sworn to Western disruption and dislocation?
The media, under camouflage of objectivity and even-handedness, fails in its duty to call out terrorism, moral opprobrium and abuse of freedoms which extremists represent. Extremists who oppose institutional opinion are rightly permitted a voice to express opinion in the UK and other democracies, as long as it is not to incite hatred or violence: no such permission exists in the extreme States mentioned above, or in Gaza under Hamas rule. Abuse of the privilege which such permission represents must not be allowed to undermine freedom.
Every weekend in the UK there are 65 million people who are not joining these protests. That is not to say that many of them will not sympathise with protestors, but the vast majority perhaps are not antisemitic, despise terrorism and may want peace above all. Many will be horrified by the devastation which Israel is causing in Gaza in order to destroy Hamas and will think that unjustified. It is nevertheless concerning to see publicity about Jermy Corbyn and his acolytes standing shoulder to shoulder with Hamas; and some climate activists and others sympathising with Hamas; It is dismaying to see Jewish institutions such as schools being vandalised by antisemites, and the fear being generated among the Jewish community. Are UK Government, law enforcers, and other UK institutions doing enough to condemn and deter behaviour based on racist hate?
NEW RECRUITS FOR EXTREMISTS AND THE CALL FOR MODERATES
Extremists can flourish and harvest followers in a social climate favourable to them. That climate often involves extreme poverty, a lack of hope for a better future. Despair breeds desperate action. The nations of North Africa and the Middle East are home to a disproportionate number of young Muslim men unemployed with little hope of work, advancement, even finding a partner and marrying and a stable family life. They are easy pickings for Islamic extremists, such as Hamas and PIJ, and the likes of Islamic Brotherhood and ISIS, offering the attractions of belonging, power, a gun, a mission, adventure, cash and enslaved women for sex.
Applying that to Gaza and the West Bank, it is little wonder that the extremists find recruits easily and get popular support as there is no hopeful alternative. Add to that the violent reaction of Israel to the barbarism of the attack on 7 October, however understandable such a reaction might be, and hatred by the people of Gaza and by wider Muslim Arab communities will have been incensed exponentially. Further generations of young Muslim men may now see the extremist movements as the only justifiable option.
Perhaps the only hope of a long-term solution lies in ridding the region of extremists, or more realistically reducing to a minimum their influence, and offering the ordinary Palestinians a credible hopeful prospect of a more normal life, rather than Gazan misery so that they reject extremism. Israel’s destruction of life and infrastructure in Gaza makes the long-term solution more distant. Somehow Israel, with the support of the USA, other Western nations, and Muslim nations who see peace in the region as necessary, such as the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, must develop a plan for the rebuild of Gaza and the establishment of that hopeful alternative for all Palestinians. For that to happen moderates in Israel need to lead: it is said that a large number of Israelis are not opposed to a Palestinian state provided safeguards are in place. It is also said that numbers of Palestinians are not blind to the madness of Hamas behaviour in the effective declaration of war on Israel on 7 October, which has caused the destruction of so much of Gaza and the displacement to South Gaza of over a million Palestinians.
The task for those Israeli moderates is monumental. Marshalling the moderate sentiments of the Palestinian people to reject Hamas and the like is also monumental. It would be the height of arrogance here to suggest how to get agreement to and how to implement a solution which may bring lasting peace to the region. But that is the long-term task of all leaders and institutions who care for the stability of the region and the humanitarian needs of ordinary people there. Those extremists who bring violence must be defeated.
However, the whole tragedy being enacted in the Middle East is a loud warning bell for the wider world, especially the Western democracies where extremists of all creeds and causes, whether religious, political or social, are creating disruption and havoc. Those who would destroy democracies love chaos. There is a clarion call for moderates to take control and cure the extremist cancers.
